Wow my head is teeming with things from my bachelor weekend. For those of you that are interested in my initial reaction to the McNabb trade let me give you a quick one liner. I’m fine that he was traded, I would have preferred it wasn’t in division.
So typically when Ali is out of town I spend a lot of my free time geeking out playing WoW. This time around it was different. I guess I basically had other things I felt like doing. I watched a lot of movies over the weekend, a total of 5. I watched two on Friday night.
I started off with Underworld, Return of the Lycans. I’ve always been a fan of the Underworld series and specifically Kate Beckinsale. Vampires versus werewolves is a pretty good premise. This latest chapter had one big thing working against it, no Kate Beckinsale except for a brief cameo at the very end. Even so I found it very entertaining, it’s definitely a worthwhile rental if you are into this type of thing. B+
Next I hooked up the laptop to the new tv in the bedroom and watched Hurt Locker, the best picture winner this year. When the movie finished I was scratching my head. How the hell did this beat Avatar? Don’t get me wrong it was an interesting film but I didn’t see anything that would have made it worthy of swiping best film honors away from something as epic as Avatar. Hurt Locker does a good job of depicting what modern day warfare in Iraq / Afghanistan is like and it isn’t pretty.
Imagine walking through a foreign land when you never know if the guy on the street likes you or hates you. If he is the latter he might just have a vest full of C-4 that he will use to take out you and anyone within 50 yards. It’s hell. However, war is, was and always will be hell. A good movie, but not Avatar good, not even close, B+.
All weekend I got to enjoy beautiful weather. I took advantage of it by working outside quite a bit on Saturday. After doing my normal weeding I turned my attention to our saw palmetto bush.
Our neighbors had theirs trimmed back hard and I liked the look of it so I decided I would do the same to ours. It was a big job. In total I spent close to two hours cutting away fronds. I brought over my car kreepy krauler to sit on since I didn’t want to wreck my knees.
I wore my leather gloves for the job. The reason this bush is called a “saw” palmetto is the fronds have a saw tooth edge to them. They do a nice job of ripping through human flesh. Although my hands were protected my arms and legs were not. As a result my appendages were a bloody mess at the end of the project. Hopefully the end result was worth the effort.
I got a second wind and decided to do some more “trimming” well actually it was more like hacking and slashing with the machete. I worked on skinning some of the cabbage palms on the property. Skinning a cabbage palm is the process of removing the dead cross hatch pattern wood that is left over from dead fronds as the tree grows.
I have tried to skin the palms in the past with the machete and had very poor results. Initially I had very poor results again with the machete just bouncing off the wood. However eventually I fine tuned my technique and was able to effectively remove the dead wood. I found hacking the shit out of a tree with a machete to be a great stress reliever as well as a good workout. In the picture you can see a skinned versus unskinned tree.
Saturday night I planned to go to the movies. I put a general invite out on Facebook for anyone that wanted to go see Clash of the Titans 3D however I had no takers so I was fine to head out solo.
My initial plans were to go to the 7:40 showing. Prior to the movie I was going to eat at the Carrabas that I thought was in Coconut Point. I figured I would sit at the bar, drink a few beers and eat my meal while watching sports on tv. Well there was one problem, there wasn’t a Carrabas there. I got it mixed up with the Carrabas at Gulf Town Center.
So it was a little after 5 o’clock. I went up to the theater to see when the earlier show starts, I figured maybe it started at 5:40. I thought maybe I could just grab some food quick and hit the earlier show. I asked the clerk what time the movie started. 5:05 she said. I looked at my watch which read 5:15. Hmmm I did some quick math, knowing that there are typically at least 10 minutes of previews. I still hadn’t eaten so I would have to make do with a movie theater dinner. Ok, give me a ticket.
I figured I still had a couple minutes so I hurried up to the food counter and ordered a nutritious dinner that consisted of a hot dog, a soft pretzel and a large Diet Coke. I got into the theater just as the last preview was wrapping up, Iron Man 2 (which looks great).
There were a decent amount of people in the theater but I still had no problem finding a good seat. When you are by yourself your seat options expand exponentially. It felt a bit weird sitting down to watch a movie myself but I didn’t mind it all that much as I worked on my fast food meal.
This movie was not shot in true 3d like Avatar was. Instead the film is mutated into 3d in post production somehow. The 3d effect was there but it wasn’t nearly as realistic as Avatar. In the past I remember pulling off my 3D glasses and have the screen look all blurry with shades of red and blue. Several times I pulled my glasses up to see what it looked like to the naked eye. Surprisingly it wasn’t much different at all. Whatever object that had the 3d effect looked slightly blurry without the glasses but for the most part it looked like a regular 2D flick.
The movie itself was fine. There was the typical crazy good special effects and plenty of action through out. There was nothing that would make me think about the movie the next day or make me recommend it wholeheartedly to somebody. It was decent and I always enjoy the 3D thing. I’d give it a B.
I wasn’t done with my movie night yet. Saturday night I watched Terminator Salvation for the second time. It was such a good movie up until the end. The ending is so dumb it almost negates the rest of the movie.
My Easter Sunday was again busy. I headed to mom’s place mid-morning with the dogs. Mom asked if we could move some stuff over to her new place awhile before we had our Easter meal. We moved a bunch of boxes and some smaller, lighter furniture items. I also brought my socket set to disassemble the day bed in her spare bedroom.
I got my first tour of her new place which is conveniently located right across the parking lot. It’s a nice unit which is obviously better maintained than where she is now. It has a totally different floor plan which has some advantages and disadvantages but I think most of the changes are positive.
Mom and I enjoyed a simple Easter meal of ham, asparagus and sweet potatoes. After we finished eating we ran a few more items across the street. We came back to the middle of a crime scene. We walked in to Sadie eating ham on the floor. Evidently mom left the left over ham in a tupperware container uncovered on the counter. Sadie knocked the ham down and ate at least 2/3 of it. I am curious if Nicki also participated in the crime although I did not see her licking her chops. I scolded Sadie loudly. Although having open food on a counter is a big temptation, I don’t want her to think it is ok to pull stuff down off of them regardless.
So mom is scheduled to move completely next Sunday. I just realized this morning that we have a race to time on Sunday as well so I will be going right from the race to mom’s place.
Sunday evening I watched my fifth and final movie of the weekend, Apollo 13. For some reason I just got the urge to see it again. It’s a great movie and when you think about how it was based on an actual event it makes the film even more special. Unless, it didn’t.
After I watched the movie I got on the net to look up “apollo moon video”. Lots of links came up, including the links to various sites that claim that the entire Apollo program was faked. Anyone that reads my blog knows that I am always open to the possibility of a conspiracy theory. I am not the type to blindly accept what media tells the public as the gospel. Although I have heard about the moon conspiracies before I never looked into many details because mostly I don’t want to believe that something as sacred as walking on the moon could possibly be just an elaborate sham put on by the federal government.
Well I went to one of the links that details the hoax and spent a good hour pouring through what was there. I also went through some sites that supposedly debunk the hoax proponents. I’m not going to go point by point as there are far too many to cover here and they are covered completely in the link above. However there are a few things that stick out in my head as odd.
The Apollo program occurred at the height of the Cold War and it’s specific goal was to reach the moon to display dominance to the Russians. Kennedy proclaimed this goal in 1962. Man supposedly walked on the moon 7 years later. 7 years in space exploration time is a drop in the bucket. If you look at the technology of that era it was miraculous that the US pulled this goal off, unless they didn’t.
Does it seem within the realm of possibility that we could have faked landing on the moon in the name of national security? The nuclear threat from the Russians felt very real at that time, establishing the US as the top dog in space was viewed as the ultimate trump card. 4% of the national GDP was funneled into the space program.
Why is it that in the 40+ years since the moon landing there has not been the simplest verification that we were there, pictures of the abandoned equipment on the surface? Now the easy way to dismiss this is there is not a telescope on Earth powerful enough to provide such pictures. However the reality is there are other ways this could have been proven. For example any of the various lunar probes that have been launched post landing could have been used to photograph the supposed landing site. Hell we just crash landed a satellite onto the moon a few months ago, why not use that satellite to send back some proof before smashing it into the surface?
Why in 1969 were we able to transport man 200,000 miles into space but since the Apollo missions ended the farthest we have been able to travel is 350 miles into space? It really doesn’t make any sense. With the huge leaps in technology since 69 you would think in the span of four decades we would have made a return trip to our closet neighbor, yet we have not.
Take a look at that site and take the time to read about the various red flags, there are a ton of them. Then ask yourself if you think there is ANYTHING the government would deem out of bounds when it comes to national security. Is it possible we would actually lie to the world about landing on the moon? Man I hope not, but do I think it is a possibility? Absolutely. Read the info and make your own determinations.
I got a call around 9pm from Ali telling me the big news, McNabb has finally been traded. I was very surprised when she told me his new team was in the same division, the Washington Redskins. Typically you never want to trade a player to a team in your same division. It’s just bad karma since you have to play that team at least twice each season.
Although I am not thrilled with number 5 going just down I-95 I am ok overall with the trade. The Eagles got decent value for Donovan, scoring a high second round draft pick this year and another next year.
As I watched the Andy Reid press conference it was with some mixed feelings. McNabb has been involved in some of the best times in Eagles history. His overall winning percentage during his 11 year Eagle career was great. He has made countless big plays in that same time period yet many Eagle fans, including myself were ready to say goodbye to him. Why do you think that is?
Well I think although McNabb was part of big wins he also was part of some of the biggest disappointments Eagle fans ever had to endure. The repeated failures in the NFC championship games ripped the soul out of most fans. When the Birds finally did make the leap to the Super Bowl it was once again the vision of McNabb doing a piss poor job of clock management while acting exhausted down the stretch that is burned into our memory.
Despite his many successes it is the epic failures that stick with many fans. The way this season ended with back to back embarrassing lopsided losses to the hated Cowboys was especially bitter. In those games where the Eagles had a chance to take their season by the horns McNabb came up McSmall, in a huge way. He played like shit.
McNabb’s personality was never a good match for Philadelphia. He seems to be happy go lucky guy that is always laughing and smiling. Eagle fans don’t want their quarterback laughing and smiling all the time. We never felt that McNabb felt the losses like we did. He never seemed to invest as much of himself emotionally in what happened on the field as the fans. We don’t like that.
Once McNabb had a chip on his shoulder about being classified as a “running” QB his game was never quite the same. Gone was the threat that would give defensive coordinators nightmares. Instead Donovan was determined to be a mostly in the pocket passer. The problem was although he is physically gifted, accuracy was not one of those gifts.
For a decade Eagle fans have suffered through McNabb making some pretty horrid throws, above, below and behind open receivers. I wonder how many run after the catch yards have been lost over the years by our receivers having to dive at ankle high throws?
Donovan was never viewed as a real emotional leader on the team. You never got a sense players fed off his leadership. I want my QB to inspire other players.
In a nutshell, I appreciate what Donovan did while he was here but I was ready to see him move on. After 11 years I know what he can do and what he can’t do. Maybe he will go to the Skins and catch on fire. Maybe he will magically be able to hit crossing receivers in stride or not choke when the pressure is on at the end of the game? Maybe, he won’t.
How do I feel about Kevin Kolb being in charge? Who knows. He showed some sparks of brilliance when he started a few games when McNabb was hurt. Hopefully he turns out to be the next Tom Brady instead of the next Bobby Hoying. I’m willing to roll the dice. Evidently the Eagles are rolling the dice in a big way. Their housecleaning of big name veterans is something I have never seen before in one Eagles off season. Hopefully they are proven to be prophets and not boobs.
Ali comes home tonight, it’s about time! 🙂
I watched all of Kevin Kolb’s press conference yesterday. I have to say I liked pretty much everything I saw and heard. Kolb has a quiet confidence that makes you feel like he can get the job done. I seriously am looking forward to next season. It will be refreshing to have a new face behind center. Surely there will be bumps in the road but I’m hopeful that by November Eagle fans will be glad that McNabb was sent packing.